


Ash maraas

by FoxNonny



Series: gra - dilseacht - cairdeas [8]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alcohol, Emetophobia, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Pining, been a while since I had to come up with tags boy howdy, implied dorian/mahanon, like my god so much pining, someone hug my boy, uhhhh sadness?, very reluctant inquisitor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-08
Updated: 2020-08-08
Packaged: 2021-03-05 18:53:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25790155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FoxNonny/pseuds/FoxNonny
Summary: Mahanon Lavellan, a cripplingly shy and soft-hearted young elf, is the wrong person to make Inquisitor. The Iron Bull, an experienced and ruthless Ben Hassrath agent, is the wrong person to comfort him.And yet.
Relationships: Male Inquisitor/Iron Bull, The Iron Bull/Male Lavellan (Dragon Age)
Series: gra - dilseacht - cairdeas [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/603103
Comments: 13
Kudos: 123





	Ash maraas

**Author's Note:**

> all my love to StitchCasual who beta'd this when I wrote it in a fit of quarantine-induced Sad like... a month ago jfc. en...joy?

For all the hearty banter, hot food, and flowing ale, this "celebration" is fucking depressing. A rowdy feast tossed together out of desperation to pocket a win, any kind of win. It's the farthest thing from having a good time just for the sake of it. 

So, by the Iron Bull's estimate, it's the farthest thing from a good time. 

You can't celebrate the official acquisition and grand re-establishment of the ancient Skyhold fortress for the Inquisition without walking back a few hundred steps to the smoking ruins of Haven. 

And for anyone with even a single functioning eye, you can't celebrate the appointment of the newly-minted Lord Inquisitor without acknowledging the very obvious reluctance and terror of the elf in question. 

Bull's hearing some excellent spin on the matter as he wanders the great hall looking for more booze among piles of stacked equipment hiding even larger piles of rubble and decay. 

"The Herald nearly gave his life for us at Haven and still doesn't think he deserves to lead us." Bull hears variations on this particular statement a few times, all with a kind of saccharine admiration. "Truly an Andrastian to his core, to be so humble."

"I hear he tried to take one of the servant's quarters for his own. Can you imagine?"

Bull can, vividly. The incident occurred on the periphery of Bull's attention as he settled his Chargers and helped shore up the ragged defences at the main gate. Grand Herald of Andraste and recent near-martyr of Haven, Mahanon Lavellan, had managed to escape his advisors' notice just long enough to settle his saddlebags in a tiny cell tucked at the end of a dark, shadowy hall off the library. Almost got away with staying there, too. 

Bull had to hand it to Leliana. No matter the chaos and no matter how tiny the elf, nothing slipped past her.

To say an argument ensued between Lavellan and Josephine (sweetest of the advisors, hardest to say "no" to) wouldn't be entirely accurate; Mahanon is far too shy and Josephine far too polite for any real heat to pass between them over such petty bullshit. But there were certainly some firm and aggressive Montilyet negotiations which resulted in Mahanon giving up his private cupboard of a room for the luxurious quarters atop the main Skyhold spire. 

Overlooking all, and _seen_ by all. 

Humility is a good cover. Bull's of two minds whether it was Josephine who came up with this angle or Leliana. Vivienne doesn't seem to be in a mood to do Mahanon any favours at the moment; Mahanon's stumbling efforts to gain her approval have been pretty painful to watch, and his generous open-armed recruitment of the rebel mages haven't done much to mend any fences there. 

So here Bull is: still hunting for liquor, still frustrated by shit offerings, but there's still plenty of gossip for Bull to pick up as he meanders. Nothing  _ new _ , but it's all about the phrasing of it. The spin.

"His face when they passed him that sword!" 

"So overwhelmed by the honour of it, wouldn't you agree?" 

"For a Dalish elf to rise so high... and a mage, no less!"

Now  _ that _ was a gamble Bull's still pretty amazed Cassandra and the others managed to pull off. He wonders how long they debated the appointment itself, never mind how they would go about maneuvering Mahanon into place; whether to ask Mahanon beforehand or shame him into accepting the position with a grand public showing. 

It worked, is the main thing. Mahanon took the sword and the title and even managed to pull together a few stammering words for the assembled crowd before bolting. 

" _ Overwhelmed _ ." Yeah, sure, but not with any kind of honour and definitely not gratitude. Terror, more like. 

But it had to be done, and Bull gets that. None of the advisors standing at Mahanon's back showed any kind of remorse or guilt for slamming the responsibility of leadership - even token leadership - on Mahanon's slim shoulders. Even Cullen, the softest of the bunch of them, had a resigned smile on his face as Mahanon tried to recover from his shock and keep his curly head held high. Like it or not, Mahanon solidified his status as a figurehead and hero during the battle of Haven. Almost entirely by his own merit, too, though rumours of the elf riding the archdemon into a mountainside to start an avalanche definitely helped garnish Lavellan's achievements that night (Bull suspects he'll find Varric at the source of them if he goes hunting for the initial tale spinner). 

Bull's noticed a kind of fetish in the South for reluctant leaders. King Alistair himself made no secret about how sorely he did not wish to be made king, and though he's adapted to the role over the years, it's clear where the seat of power truly lies. The Qun has more agents watching Queen Anora's actions than her husband's for good reason. But the bards still sing of the noble sacrifices of King Alistair. How humble he is. A _true_ man of the people. 

The more Lavellan balks and shies away from the position, the more his devotees will love him, and the more his enemies will think him entirely weak. There's a power in that, power the Inquisition can work with. Mahanon showed his intellect and his courage at Haven, yes, but an inexperienced and uncertain young Dalish elf is easy to underestimate no matter his proven achievements. Being so obviously ill-suited for the brutality of politics will make Lavellan appear harmless to the Orlesians in particular. They won't expect the kind of grit it takes to drag oneself, frozen and broken, through an underground maze of old tunnels and halfway up a mountain from an elf who stammers and cringes with obvious shy anxiety when approached by too many strangers at once. Mahanon will continue to surprise people, Bull is sure. 

Bull finally finds a dusty bottle and twists the cork free, giving the contents a sniff. Strong liquor. Good. He's buzzed enough not to give a shit whose swill he's pilfering, comfortable in the knowledge that whoever they are, it's unlikely they're gonna be willing to argue theft with a seven-foot Qunari. 

The advisors have been passing Lavellan around all evening. He's still bandaged up in places for frostbite and, if a few eyewitness accounts bear out (Mahanon's been pretty tight-lipped about the specifics), signs of getting tossed about like a ragdoll by that massive demon-thing, Corypheus. The scars and bruises work in favour of the image the Inquisition's carefully building for their Inquisitor: 

" _ Look at this guy, taking one for the team. Risking life and limb for the good of the people. Tiny but mighty, or something. _ "

Bull drinks, feeling sour.

To their credit, Josephine and Leliana in particular have stayed close at Lavellan's elbow; never leaving him alone with any grateful supplicant or haughty clergy person for longer than a sentence or two, always quick to support or redirect a conversation if needed. The elf is becoming more practiced with the dance of small talk, but despite his determined smile and unassuming kindness, there's a distinctly tight and almost frightened look about him in social situations that's difficult to miss. 

_ Poor guy _ .

Well, Lavellan's not the only unhappy fuck at this party. There are plenty of tight smiles and long faces. Cheer is hard to find in the wake of tragedy, and not everyone is up to forcing it. 

Bull knows he would have a better time out in the courtyard. Mercs, soldiers, and lowborn refugees have little cause to pretend a celebration. More drinks, less double talk, more real shit - tears and laughter bundled up in gallows humour. That's where his Chargers are. That's where Bull  _ should  _ be.

But instead he's here, prowling the throne room in all its dusty crumbling glory, foraging for bad drinks and keeping a distant eye out for scant glances of a curly head.

And for what? Bull can't help Mahanon right now. It's too busy, too public, and anyway, Bull's been trying to stay away from the elf for... personal reasons. Lavellan's made his feelings about Bull more than clear in all his endearingly awkward little overtures, which would all be fine and fucking good if the elf wasn't the damn Herald of Andraste, and if the Ben Hassrath wouldn't be getting a decidedly unfair advantage with Bull in his bed, and if-

Well, fuck. And if Bull didn't like him so damn much.

If word got back that Bull was turning down invitations from the Herald -  _ Inquisitor _ , now, even worse - there'd be questions. Suggestions. Maybe even commands. Stupid, how many people would be thrilled if Bull were to give in on this one, Bull himself included. 

But things change. Commands change. Bull knows that the whole point of his job is to nudge and manipulate, lie, report back, gain as much ground for the Qun as he can. 

It would be easy, with Lavellan. Easier, even, than Bull has dared hint to his own people. Bull is Ben Hassrath because he can see what people want, what people  _ need.  _ It would take nothing, no effort at all, to let himself be the man Mahanon turns to when he's looking for a friend, looking for advice, comfort. No effort at all to gently, slowly, start tugging at all the loose little strings of the elf's doubts and insecurities. Bull could make Mahanon happy. Could make Mahanon feel loved and wanted, even as Bull binds him up so tightly by his desperate hunger for affection that this Inquisitor, this saviour of Thedas, this Herald of the  _ bas  _ religion, will breathe and move only by the will of his Ben Hassrath lover. Only by the will of the Qun.

It would be easy. It could even be the opening Bull's people have been patiently awaiting for centuries. A Qunari puppet at the very heart of the South. 

Bull could make Mahanon smile, could take all these terrible unasked for burdens from his shoulders, could grant him the peace he deserves. 

Maraas shokra.  _ There's nothing to struggle against, Boss. Relax. I've got you.  _ Anaan esaam Qun.  _ Victory is in the Qun. _

Bull waits until he's deep in the shadows of the overgrown garden before he vomits, heaving again and again even after all the shit liquor is out and soaking into the tangled weeds. Somehow, he still feels poisoned all the same.

He finds a bottle of wine to rinse his mouth with back in the throne room, giving the festivities another quick scan. It's well past sundown now, and even if these dead-eyed nobles want to keep mingling, Bull decides he's just about done with his impotent vigil-keeping for the night. 

Between a single eye, a haze of liquor, and the distance and chaos of the throne room, it takes a moment for Bull's gaze to catch on Leliana's. But it catches. She's tucked against a cracked old pillar, just aside the archway leading to some big chamber the advisors have already staked out as the war table room.

It takes some maneuvering to join the spymaster. Bull's of a mind to start throwing elbows at nervously giggling Orlesians, but he gets the feeling Leliana wouldn't approve. S _ omething something, subtlety, something _ . She's lucky Bull's got a soft spot for redheads.

Bull ducks into the shadows and finds a cozy spot holding up the wall (probably at least a bit literally) opposite Leliana, raising a brow at her quiet, inscrutable stare. In the spirit of generosity (and after taking another hearty swig first), Bull offers Leliana his wine bottle. 

Leliana quirks a cute little smile at that ( _Spymaster_ , Bull reminds himself, _and the famous Grey Warden lady's lady; off-limits. Still cute_ ). She doesn't take the bottle.

"We've checked the stairwell ahead," Leliana says softly. Too softly for eavesdroppers, and lips moving so scarcely only a skilled lip reader could make out the words. 

Bull's a man of many skills, a few handfuls of which happen to do with lips. He understands her just fine. He sips his wine.

"One pace in, then through the door to your left," Leliana continues. "Those stairs. Sturdier than they look, but I'd watch how they're worn in the middle of the step. It's a bit slippery. We've cleared a passage through the lower levels to the tower."

Bull folds an arm over his chest. "Nice work."

A slower smile this time, and not at all cute. None too friendly, either. Bull's seen this kind of smile on the battlefield before; an acknowledgement of skill from one master to another. Recognition. 

"Our Herald - well, Lord Inquisitor, now," Leliana says, "has retired for the evening."

"Don't blame him," Bull grunts. The honesty doesn't cost him any ground, and anyway, he does like Leliana. "I hope someone's finding more booze. If you want people to stick around and keep the gossip going without the main show pony on hand, you'll need some lubrication."

"Libation?"

"I said what I said."

Leliana wrinkles her nose to disguise a laugh, but her expression is more sober when she speaks next. "He could use some company."

Honesty. This one has a price attached.  _ Looking for a buyer. _

"I'll give Varric a head's up," Bull says. "They're on good terms."

"Busy." An exasperating problem for another day briefly creases Leliana's brow. "A... friend of his is arriving."

_ Ah.  _ Bull tosses back some wine to chase that little sip of information.  _ That's gonna be interesting.  _ "Dorian-"

"-has been stalking the library like an offended tomcat since arriving," Leliana says. "I believe he has yet to forgive Lavellan for giving us that little scare back at Haven."

The "little scare" being, marching off to a pretty fucking certain death and not pulling off his miraculous reappearance until after a few dark hours in the snow had already passed. Bull doesn't like to think of that ugly little chunk of night much himself, or the look on Lavellan's face when he had explained his plan to confront Corypheus directly with that full, hopeless acceptance of his own doom. Haven carved lines into Mahanon's freckled face that have yet to fade, aging him in ways that make him look both distressingly young and old in equal measures. 

And Dorian. Dorian, the big softie, obviously had his silk knickers in a twist over Lavellan before Haven. Now Pavus keeps to himself and his wine and his books in something of a sulk, probably swinging from anger to guilt and back again.  _ Very _ Tevinter. Likely seeing the same shit in his head that Bull does too often these days: the fires and screams as Haven burned around them; templar-shaped monstrosities bursting out the armour with red lyrium; demonic shrieks, dragon fire. 

An elf who never asked for this, had no chance of preparing himself and did not volunteer, offering to go out into the chaos and madness to distract an ancient monster just long enough for everyone else to get away, and no one speaking up to stop him. No one saying a word. 

Bull doesn't blame Dorian. He might send Varric to the library once the dwarf is done with his "friend", though. He's sure to have a few thoughts on how to manage the pain of caring for a person with the responsibilities of a legend.

"Cassandra," Bull says.

Leliana snorts. "Hardly a comforting type."

"Sera." 

The spymaster just raises an eyebrow.

Bull shrugs, and drinks.  _ Fair enough.  _ "Why not you? Josie?"

Leliana drops her eyes. "We cannot be his friends. Not the friends he needs right now, anyway. Not when we're the ones who put him there."

"I get it," Bull says. "You've got priorities."

Leliana looks up, her eyes acknowledging the unspoken point. "You can read him."

"Yeah, reading him isn't really a challenge."

"We're working on that." Leliana straightens, relentless. "You can read _people._ We both know he will let you in. You will know if... if he requires certain handling. _We_ need to know."

_ If Lavellan is breaking. If he's already broken. How much the Inquisition can get out of him before he's too fucked to be useful as a figurehead. _

"Sure that's a good idea?" Bull says softly. "Asking me?"

"If it wasn't," says Leliana, "you would already be up there, Hissrad." 

Bull's smile is slow, and it isn't friendly. Not in the fucking slightest.

-

Even if there was a proper door, Bull wouldn't bother knocking. Sometimes it's not about taking the choice away, but coaxing out an honest one. " _ Come in _ " costs a fuck of a lot more than " _please_ _ go away _ " on nights like this. 

The chambers are huge, but not as daunting as Bull expected. Not for someone standing seven feet tall, anyway. There's a fire in the hearth but it's clearly fighting a losing battle with the drafts from the ancient open windows and archways, and no one's standing by to tend its feeble flickers. The only other light to cut through the shadows of the room are the cold beams of the moon, occasionally textured and warped by shards of old stained glass still clinging to the window frames.

There's a makeshift desk and a sagging bookshelf already set and loaded with papers and reports to read, approve, sign, pass. A bed frame has been hastily assembled and topped with the best mattress the Inquisition could muster up from their scrambled supplies, straw of some kind. Freshly turned down.  None of this would have fit in the tiny cell Mahanon picked for himself off the library. 

There will be more to come, of course. More luxuries. Plenty of politics to be conducted through the flattery of private ownership. A landowner's seamstress cousin gets to claim her drapery adorns the personal chambers of  _ the  _ Lord Inquisitor in exchange for a few dozen militia. That kind of thing. 

Bull hears Mahanon before he sees him, and even that's a matter of chance and careful listening. That choked, hitched breath could be a half dozen different complaints of an old creaky fortress. But Bull knows better.

Bull follows the sound to find a crumpled form huddled in a shadowy nook formed by the bookshelf and the wall. Easy to miss, far too small and not at all shaped like something you might address as "my lord," or "your worship."

Bull skips the honorifics. "Hey."

The figure springs up with a startled hiss, unfolding into a wild-eyed, wild-haired elf clutching a dusty amber bottle and swaying dangerously before collapsing back against the wall to steady himself as he scrubs at his face with a clumsy hand. Mahanon's glinting elven gaze is glassy with tears and drink, but he does an admirable job of swallowing back his misery as he blinks up at Bull. " _ Mythal'enaste _ , you - you scared me half to death, fuck."

Bull might make a joke about Lavellan maybe keeping an eye open for assassins in future. Could tease the big-eared little forest elf for letting a giant Qunari reaver with a bum leg sneak up on him. 

Not tonight, though.

"I've been meaning to sort out some kind of heraldry with those Orlesian horn players," says Bull. "Can't enter a room without fanfare, that shit's illegal in Orlais."

Mahanon's full lips curve into a watery smile. "Is not."

"Is too. Ask anyone."

Lavellan's chuckle comes out a little more hitched than a proper laugh, a little more broken. But it's something. Then, quietly, he whispers, "I've missed you."

Bull doesn't pretend not to know what he means. "Missed you too, Boss."

Mahanon closes his eyes and lifts his bottle to his lips with a shaky hand. Bull does the same with his wine bottle, draining it in one solid swig.

Lavellan's swallow is laboured and audible, the gasp of air after the liquor goes down speaking to the elf's struggle to maintain a semblance of composure. He must have been weeping alone up here for some time. "I'd like to ask an unfair question, Bull."

Bull puts his empty bottle on the desk, making a mental note to grab it on his way out. "Sure."

"Would you be here if I wasn't... if people didn't think I was important, if-" Mahanon lifts his marked hand, the eerie green light flashing in the shadows and lighting up Mahanon's face for a brief moment, catching on his puffy eyes and bitten lips before he drops it again, "-if we'd just met as normal people. Would we still be friends, do you think?" Mahanon swallows. "Are we friends, Bull?"

It's the rambling kind of question that drunken misery gives rise to, not the one Mahanon's really asking. Bull gives him some space to think it over.

"You don't have to answer that," Mahanon says eventually, looking away. "Maybe... maybe it's better if you don't. It's not fair to you, any of you. Any of you."

"What about you?"

Mahanon laughs out loud, uncharacteristically harsh and bitter, then cringes back from his own voice. " _ Fenhedis lasa _ , what _about_ me? I've been heaped with praises and given all sorts of promises and luxuries this evening, like I've earned any of it. Like Haven wasn't..." Mahanon grits his teeth and shudders, warding something off. When he opens his eyes again he looks exhausted. Small, even smaller than he is. "I'm not the right person. I know that. Just the one everyone's stuck with. And I don't... I don't intend to let people down, I don't want to. I want to do this  _ right _ , I just - fuck, I'm just..."

Mahanon clenches his hands, fighting for control, but he's sweating sparks. Bull waits for his usual instinctive unease at the sight of magic to rear up, but finds himself just feeling... well, something else. Something that makes him want to step forward, sparks and all, instead of back.

"I told you once before I wasn't terribly well-liked by the clan," Mahanon says, his voice rough. "At least there I knew where I stood. If kindness was offered, it was honest. Sometimes grudging or pointed, but honest, and I didn't have to guess. Or pretend. And if I was pretending, it didn't matter, not really."

Mahanon looks up at Bull, eyes spilling over again, unfocused and utterly lost.

"I know it's not me, is what I'm saying," Mahanon says. "None of this... none of any of this is for me, or about me, and most of it - I don't want it to be. It shouldn't be. Bull, you're not here for me. And I should care, right? But I don't. I don't. Because you're here, and - and I want to think it's not because of what you are, and not because of what they made me. And that's not fair." Mahanon's breath hitches, his shoulders shaking. "If I hadn't got out... no one would have remembered me, would they? It would all be just... this." Mahanon gestures wildly. "Those stories, that  _ Herald _ , and they'd focus less on everyone I didn't save because at least I was buried with them all, good and proper. _That_ would be fair, right?"

"Boss..."

"I wasn't  _ chosen _ , Bull," Mahanon says, his voice rising. "Not once. I just -  _ happen _ , and people have to make do, and pretend, and they shouldn't have to. It shouldn't have been me, it  _ shouldn't _ be me-"

" _ Mahanon _ ."

Lavellan stops short at the sound of his own name, his eyes enormous. Then he shrinks back, covering his face with his hand. " _ Creators _ , I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I'm sorry..."

It's only a few steps between them. Barely a breath for Bull to close that distance and ease the near-empty bottle from Mahanon's grip, putting it aside so he can pull the elf close against his chest and hold him tightly, tighter than is safe or fair for either one of them.

"You're right, Boss," Bull says softly. He hesitates, then lifts a hand to touch Mahanon's curls. Another breath, and he closes another distance to rest his palm at the nape of Mahanon's neck. Just for tonight. "It shouldn't be you."

Mahanon sags in Bull's arms with a long shudder, sighing in something like relief.

"I know you're a lightweight, so I'm counting on you forgetting the specifics of all this tomorrow," Bull continues. He grins when Mahanon tries for an offended grumble at this, muffled by Bull's chest. "If you weren't Inquisitor... you wouldn't miss me. But don't tell anyone I said that."

"I'd miss you," Mahanon insists, turning his head to be heard. "All the time, probably."

"That's sweet," says Bull. "But I'm saying you wouldn't have to."

Bull pulls back to take Mahanon's tearstained face in his hands, meeting the elf's bewildered stare and aching in a way he's not trained for, not prepared to contend with. Everything about this elf is wrong for Bull. Too young, too naive, too small, too soft. A fucking  _ mage _ , of all things. 

"It shouldn't be you," Bull says again, meaning something different from before but pretending it's all the same. "For what it's worth, I'm here."

Mahanon takes a sharp breath and puts a hand over Bull's, leaning his face into Bull's palm. "Everything." He closes his eyes, a few more tears dripping from his long lashes onto Bull's hands. "It's worth... everything."

The Herald of Andraste, Lord Inquisitor, is quiet and compliant as the Ben Hassrath agent carries him to his bed and helps him undress enough so he can sleep in some comfort. He drinks the water Bull gives him, eats the rations Bull hands him - all of them, though he tries to give up after a few bites and moans at Bull when the Qunari stubbornly guides the whey bread back up to his mouth again. He takes the herbal tincture Bull hands him and doesn't ask what it is before swallowing it, and the Hissrad in Bull weighs the actions of both elf and Qunari and can't decide which of them is weakest in all of this. 

Bull sits at the edge of Mahanon's mattress as the elf sinks under the covers, his soft stormy eyes fixed on Bull's face with such open need and yearning that Bull wonders a bit stupidly why anyone would need words in the first place, if people can speak like this. Mahanon is still hurting, of course, and Bull hasn't really eased the pain much, and they both know this. But some kinds of pain are kinder than others. More fair.

Mahanon lets his hand fall open on the blankets next to Bull, subtle as an axe to the face. Bull takes it, liking how the calluses of their palms line up even as Mahanon's smaller hand disappears in Bull's. 

"You won't be here when I wake up," Mahanon says, barely whispering. His eyelids are already heavy and drooping, Bull notes with some small satisfaction. The sedative in the tonic Bull gave him is a quick one. _Light weight._

"No, I won't," Bull says.

Mahanon nods, all cried out for the night but something deeper and more exhausted than sorrow settling in the wake of tears. "I understand."

Bull squeezes Mahanon's hand. "You don't, but that's okay. It's for the best, yeah?"

Mahanon doesn't respond.

Bull lingers a moment longer than he should. A few moments, if he's being honest. A few moments just to hold Mahanon's hand before he folds it over Mahanon's chest, slim and softly rising and falling beneath the blankets. Another moment to brush a few stray curls from Mahanon's closed eyes, marking the creases of a furrowed brow remaining even as the elf's expression slackens in sleep. 

Leliana is waiting on the ramparts by the chamber Bull's claimed for himself, gazing out over the mountain peaks around them with a keen-eyed patience reminiscent of her ravens. 

"He'll hold up for as long as you need him to," Bull says quietly, only pausing in his step to murmur this once he's within earshot of the spymaster. He doesn't turn to face her, or join her in her reverie. "Not in private, but where it matters for the cause. Firm hand, clear instructions. He'll have some good ideas, but he'll need the steps laid out for him."

"The trebuchets at Haven," Leliana says, and Bull nods, though they're facing different directions and she can't possibly see him. It had been one fuck of an illuminating moment in all the chaos, hearing Mahanon's voice pipe up and cut through the din of battle to suggest bringing down the mountain on the approaching army. Not just a figurehead, not just a puppet.

_ I want to do this right.  _

And that's the important bit, where Mahanon will get by where others might crumble in his position. Believing in the cause, or some part of the cause, if not himself. Dedication can go a long way with the proper guidance.

Bull shifts on his feet, announcing his intention to keep walking, but Leliana speaks again.

"What about after?"

Bull clenches his jaw. Breathes in, and out. "Do we care about after?"

"We should." Not a judgment, but a statement of cool practicality, though Bull can hear the threads of humanity beneath it. Something like sorrow, if not remorse or regret. "Would he not be stronger if he has an ‘after’ in mind? Something to fight for?"

Mahanon had trembled awfully, visibly shaking, as he approached the doors of the Haven chantry after declaring his intentions to meet the monsters head-on. He'd been grey with fear and flinched with every shriek and crash from the wreckage that had been a refugee camp. Anyone could see his terror for themselves that night. You wouldn't have had to stand too close to get the full measure of it.

Bull fucking loves the blood and heat of a good hard fight, loves the chance to lock eyes with a worthy adversary and grin blood at each other from across a tangle of broken bodies. Loves the clean-cut bravado of it all, the simplicity of winning, of being the most dangerous fucker on the field. 

But Bull suddenly (or perhaps not suddenly, perhaps it's simmered there under his breastbone all these past long days), violently  _ hates  _ this Inquisitor everyone is lauding for all the wrong virtues. The humble, noble Inquisitor who selflessly tried to take a homely cell for his bedchambers out of sheer modesty, rather than a shy recluse desperately trying to escape from view. The brave and fearless Inquisitor who faced down a demigod and came out on top, instead of a terrified young elf who let himself be offered up for others, who shook so badly he could barely walk to his own execution grounds and whose escape was a mix of quick thinking and luck, pure luck. The Inquisitor who has such benevolent love and loyalty to his people, as if any of these people are  _ Mahanon's _ people,  _ shem'len _ and Andrastians who did not protest when he volunteered his life for them, who shook his hand tonight and praised him and congratulated him and left him to drink and cry alone, left him feeling selfish for his want of a friend, any comfort, any kindness at all that was meant for him and not his station. 

"If you want your Inquisitor to do what you need him to do," Bull says, his voice hard and cold, "then don't fuck with his head by offering him an 'after.' He already knows what he's here for."

Leliana is silent for a moment. Then, quietly, she says, "I could say the same to you, Qunari."

Bull keeps walking.

The room is fucking cold when he enters it, and there's no fire - however feeble - flickering in the hearth to stave off the chill. Bull doesn't care. Cold is better for a foul mood for him than heat. Worse for his bones and his aches, but better for staving off the old ghosts. 

He kicks everything off in jerky, pissy motions, tossing it all aside and shoving himself into his bedroll and hating the military precision of the blankets and covers for obscure, stupid reasons. 

Tonight wasn't a mission, but as a Ben Hassrath, he failed it all the same. He could argue that Leliana was testing him. She probably had someone listening. Dangling Mahanon at his lowest as bait, seeing if the Qunari ally could be trusted not to take the obvious opening. It's the kind of sideways shit an Orlesian would pull. He could argue that passing her little gambit and coming out clear gains the Qun a lot more leeway with the Inquisition in the long run.

But Bull, as a man, is tired. He's so fucking tired.

_ What's one more broken person, at the end of it all?  _ Bull stares up through the hole in the ceiling above him, his eye on the cold and distant stars.  _ Meraad astaarit, meraad itwasit, aban aqun. The tide rises, the tide falls, the sea is unchanged. The individual is nothing but part of a larger purpose. Suffering comes only from not understanding one's place in the world. Peace comes with acceptance. _

Something deeper and more exhausted than sorrow. That was the look on Mahanon's face, when Cullen asked him how he planned to follow after them once he'd faced down Corypheus. The look on Mahanon's face tonight, as he clung to Bull's kindness and knew Bull would not be there when he woke up.  _ I understand. _

Acceptance.  _ He already knows what he's here for. _

It would be heretical to say that Mahanon is suffering.

It would be lying to say that Mahanon isn't suffering.

Hissrad can solve this for himself, easily, by knowing that the  _ bas _ must be properly educated in the Qun for its tenets to hold true for them. That they must be purged of their misplaced fetish for individuality, their own selfish urges. That  _ bas saarebas  _ in particular can't ever be fully cured, and all this unnecessary misery just proves it.

Bull lies awake and stares at the stars, exhausted and unable to sleep, unable to rest, haunted and aching with private agonies he cannot name and doesn't dare to try.


End file.
